Eastern Pennsylvania and Allegheny County lead Obamacare enrollments statewide

Affordable Care Act

Harry Fisher, THE MORNING CALL

Outreach and enrollment specialist Cathy Cortijo (from left)) and case manager Glory Casado work with client Sandra Quiros of Allentown at the Neighborhood Health Centers of the Lehigh Valley Allentown office in November. Counting Carbon County, which is included in the Lehigh Valley for U.S. Census purposes, 19,027 people signed up for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Outreach and enrollment specialist Cathy Cortijo (from left)) and case manager Glory Casado work with client Sandra Quiros of Allentown at the Neighborhood Health Centers of the Lehigh Valley Allentown office in November. Counting Carbon County, which is included in the Lehigh Valley for U.S. Census purposes, 19,027 people signed up for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. (Harry Fisher, THE MORNING CALL)

Tim Darragh and Eugene Tauber,Of The Morning Call

See where local Obamacare enrollment was highest

Looking to enroll people in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, government and volunteer agencies headed to the state's population centers. The effort paid off.

Newly released data on enrollment of individuals who signed up during the first open enrollment period for the health care law shows that close to two-thirds of the 318,000 Pennsylvanians who signed up for coverage come from the state's most populous counties in eastern Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh area. That includes Lehigh and Northampton counties, where 9,145 and 8,346 people signed up, respectively.

Counting Carbon County, which is included in the Lehigh Valley for U.S. Census purposes, 19,027 people signed up.

"It's great news that more than 19,000 people got covered in the Lehigh Valley through the Health Insurance Marketplace, but our work here is far from over," said Paydon Miller, regional communications director of Get Covered America, an enrollment organization. "With the next open enrollment period right around the corner, we'll be working nonstop with our partners to make sure that Pennsylvanians get covered and stay covered."

The next open enrollment period begins Nov. 15.

Locally, neighborhoods with the three highest enrollments were in center city Allentown, where more than 4,100 individuals got coverage. Again, that's not surprising, since those are areas with high concentrations of working-class individuals, the primary group the Affordable Care Act aimed to help.

Both Lehigh and Northampton counties had more enrollments relative to their populations against other counties. Lehigh, which is Pennsylvania's 11th-most populous county, was eighth in enrollments. Northampton, 13th in population, was 10th in enrollments, according to the federal ZIP code data.

The federal data lists individuals who enrolled in health insurance through the health care law, also called Obamacare, breaking the list down by ZIP code. It only covers individuals in the 36 states that, like Pennsylvania, opted to have the federal government operate its statewide marketplace, or had joint state-federal marketplaces.

In all, 7.3 million people nationwide enrolled as of mid-August. That is less than the approximately 8 million who the government said had signed up initially, reflecting the ins and outs of health insurance. The latest tally, for instance, would include those who did not pay their premiums or those who dropped their Obamacare coverage because they got coverage through a job.

The number also will grow as people change their family or job status, creating exceptions allowing them to sign up for Affordable Care Act coverage outside the open enrollment period.

Get Covered America and other organizations working to enroll individuals have remained active since the first open enrollment period closed.

The next open enrollment period likely will be busy again as groups have already begun targeting underserved populations. In addition, with the adoption of Gov. Tom Corbett's HealthyPA plan this summer, expansion of Medicaid as provided under the health care law will occur for 2015.

Antoinette Kraus, director of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, said organizers are trying to get more help for the Lehigh Valley and Northeast Pennsylvania, which had limited access to already-stretched funding that hired certified health care law navigators.

"I think everyone recognizes that the Lehigh Valley and Northeast Pennsylvania could use more boots on the ground," she said.

Organizers are now training people to help others with their applications, as well as make public presentations on the law and opportunities for enrolling.

OBAMACARE ENROLLMENT

Top 10 Pennsylvania counties for Affordable Care Act enrollments through April 19: